The Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Canary Islands Government promotes the construction and acquisition of more than a thousand protected houses in Tenerife before the end of the year within the design of the Housing Plan. In the first year and a half of execution of this document, 4,732 have already been rehabilitated on the Island. Thanks to the Next Generation funds, to which are added those of the regional entity and those of local entities, Tenerife will have 75 million euros to launch the construction of 280 homes and the rehabilitation of another 944.
The councilor of the area of the Government of the Canary Islands, Sebastian Franquis, reported yesterday in a committee of the regional Parliament that his department has already started the process for the construction or acquisition of 1,046 homes in Tenerife only in the first year and a half of the 2020-2025 Plan. Responding to a question from the deputy of the Socialist Parliamentary Group Nira Fierro about the conclusions of the Council’s Housing Commission held recently and in which Franquis participated, the counselor also assured that 4,732 homes have been reformed or rehabilitated on the Island, both from the public park as in private promotions.
“Lots of expectations”
“We are aware that this is a Plan that has created great expectations in Canarian society», affirmed the counselor Franquis. He details it: “First, because we haven’t had such a roadmap for a long time; second, because an attempt has been made to share and agree from the base with the whole of Canarian society». He adds: “We have been executing this Plan for a year and a half with everything that means launching calls for acquisition or construction, aid, tenders or projects.” Franquis values: «What we have done in those first 18 months is to lay the foundations for the development of the 14 programs included in the Plan». That is exactly what he explained to the insular housing commission with respect to the Island of Tenerife.
Minister Franquis recounts the conclusions presented a few weeks ago in the aforementioned island commission in which he specified the progress made by the different programs that make up the Canary Islands Housing Plan 2020-2025 in Tenerife.
Franquis lists from the outset the actions carried out in Tenerife in the lines of construction and acquisition of new protected housing, which materializes in 1,046 new houses already committed on the Island.
The regional councilor breaks this lot down and states that the Canarian Housing Institute (ICAVI) has already laid the foundations, with the construction and project tenders, for the construction of 578 homes in Tenerife which will be paid for with funds from the Autonomous Community. The bulk of these new homes will be built thanks to the agreement signed with the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, which will allow the construction of three promotions in Santa María del Mar-Cuevas Blancas, María Jiménez and Los Príncipes with 343 homes in the capital of Tenerife.
To these 578 houses must be added the 76 homes that the Ministry is also going to acquire throughout the Island within the Canarias Pro-Hogar program, the 280 that are planned corresponding to the old Plan 20,000 (now Line 6 of the European Funds for energy-efficient homes efficient), the 100 that will be built by the public company Visocan in La Gallega (Santa Cruz) or the twelve by private promoters with a grant from the Ministry.
“More than 4,700 homes have already been renovated or rehabilitated in Tenerife”
Rehabilitation
With regard to rehabilitation, Minister Franquis also emphasized that some 4,732 houses have been rehabilitated in Tenerife in the last year and a half, most of them in the public park. In this sense, he highlights the nearly 2,735 of Visocan and 1,420 from the ICAVI. Added to these are the rehabilitations paid for by the autonomous community within the urban renewal and regeneration areas (ARRU) in several neighborhoods in Tenerife, with 577 renovated houses and an investment in these 18 months of 6,087,774 euros.
Regarding the different aid programs included in the Housing Plan, Sebastián Franquis highlights that, in the last call for rental aid for families with few resources, in 2021, the ICAVI granted aid to 2,609 applicants in Tenerife to whom allocated 6,702,237 euros.
The counselor also referred to the aid given to young people for the purchase of their first home, from which 262 young people under 35 years of age have benefited in the last 18 months with a global investment of just over two million euros. euros.
Another of the programs of the new Housing Plan that Minister Franquis outlined is the one created to combat rural depopulation in Canarian municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants. In Tenerife, in the first edition of these aids, that of 2021, 15 municipalities presented themselves, among which 4,457,624 euros were distributed.
The counselor also spoke about the future forecasts that open up for Tenerife with the Next Generation funds from the EU that have just been signed by the regional government in Madrid, and that will serve to promote the construction and rehabilitation of another 1,224 homes on the Island These European funds, to which we must add the resources provided by the Ministry itself and those of other administrations such as Cabildo and City Councils, yield a total item of 75,795,354 euros, to be invested in the rehabilitation and construction of the public park of the Island in the coming months.
On the one hand, line 1 of aid will be implemented, focused on the rehabilitation of ICAVI homes such as the public park of La Torrita (La Orotava), La Hornera (San Cristóbal de La Laguna) or residential neighborhoods such as Añaza (Santa Cruz de Tenerife) or El Cardonal (San Cristóbal de La Laguna), The total amounts to 944 homes to rehabilitate in this first line, for which a total of 37,601,357 euros are allocated.
affordable rentals
The second line of aid, reported by the councilor in the parliamentary committee, is Line 6 intended for construction for affordable rent divided between two actions. On the one hand, the one that ICAVI will execute directly in the municipalities of Arona, Arafo and Adeje, where it is planned that 130 homes will be built with a budget of 14,058,324 euros.
The other construction action will be carried out by the municipalities which, in the case of the Island of Tenerife, will add 150 homes to be built by the City Council of La Laguna with a total investment of 24,135,673 euros.
